Purpose

To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

High Desert Corridor draft environmental study is released

Caltrans and Metro today released the long-awaited draft environmental study for the High Desert Corridor project,
which contemplates a new 63-mile freeway between Palmdale in Los
Angeles County and the town of Apple Valley in San Bernardino County —
along with a possible high-speed rail line, bikeway and green energy
transmission corridor. The study also considers the legally-required No
Build alternative.

The High Desert Corridor sits north of the San Gabriel Mountains,
traditionally the divide between the heavily populated Los Angeles
Basin and the rural Mojave Desert. In recent years, however, desert
cities such as Palmdale, Lancaster, Adelanto, Hesperia, Victorville and
Apple Valley have grown tremendously and now have a combined population
near 700,000. The study predicts more growth — and more traffic — in
coming decades.

Transportation, however, has remained a challenge in the High Desert
with Highway 138 remaining the primary east-west option. Highway 138 is
narrow — two or four lanes, often with no center divider — and long ago
earned a reputation for its safety issues.

As with other transportation projects, funding for the High Desert
Corridor project will remain a challenge. At this time, the project is
not funded, although Measure R helped provide money for the project’s
environmental studies. Among the alternatives studied is a toll road
that could raise funding needed to help finance the project.

(See website for the news release from Caltrans.)

From Sylvia Plummer, October 1, 2014

High Desert Corridor
Draft EIR/EIS is Released

Caltrans and Metro
today released the long-awaited draft
environmental study for the High Desert Corridor
project, which contemplates a new
63-mile freeway between Palmdale in Los
Angeles County and the town of Apple
Valley in San Bernardino County -- along
with a possible high-speed rail line,
bikeway and green energy transmission
corridor. The study also considers the
legally-required No Build alternative.

Tom Williams comments that this is an
important project for us to study as he
hopes it will give truck traffic for SR-14
which will travel back to the I-5 and 210
AND 710N and 710S Freeways. Tom also
pointed out that this is the segment with
the highest revenue generation from
incremental property tax revenue.

This project is definitely one which we
must consider in our discussion of cumulative impacts.